Society News

Our new webmaster is now ready to start providing passwords for access to the Members' Area of the site. To obtain your password, members are asked to send a request via the Contact Us page, selecting the subject "Website Enquiries", ensuring to include their membership number. It may take several days to send out a reply, especially if there is a large response. At present, the Members' Area is still under construction and there is not very much to see.

Do you want to trace your Family History, but don’t know how to begin? Tay Valley Family History Society is offering a series of courses during 2012 to help you find your roots.

To reserve your place on the next course (normally Wednesday evenings, 7pm to 9pm for six weeks) or to get further information, please contact us. The course fee is £30, and you can take up an optional discounted Annual Membership at the conclusion of the course for only £15. The dates for the next course will be announced later - watch this space.

Why not come along and learn from the experts!

Other News

The Nine Trades of Dundee recently announced the launch of their new web site at an event hosted by the Lord Provost at Dundee City Chambers. They also took the opportunity to promote a new book entitled “The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee – a Short History”. If you are keen to find out more about the Nine Trades, visit the new web site at www.ninetradesofdundee.co.uk.

Deceased Online has now included all records for the five cemeteries and one crematorium managed by Cheshire West and Chester Council in NW England. Also coming soon on www.deceasedonline.com - the records for another NW England city, plus more Scottish areas. Keep an eye on it!

For the second year running Fife writer, Barbara Millar, judged the articles published in the Tay Valley Family Historian throughout the year and chose this year’s winning article which appeared in the May/June issue.

Congratulations to J Marie Bassett for her thorough and utterly absorbing account of the full and fascinating life of Patrick Bell – an inventor, teacher and minister. Her painstaking research covered each and every facet of his life. Marie’s article was also beautifully illustrated, which added so much to the piece.

A warm, affectionate recollection of summers spent with her grandparents in Dundee by Jean Coombs, published in the February edition, took second place, and Barbara’s third choice was the article by George Lewthwaite about local Dundee hero, Walter White, which appeared in the October issue.

Grateful thanks to all our contributors to the journal throughout the year and special thanks to Barbara for agreeing to adjudicate again in this year’s competition.

I hope you like our new web site! A great deal of thought and discussion has gone into it, and I and members of Council have tried to create a new site which will serve the Society for some time to come. I am grateful to Council's web sub-committee for all the development work they have done, and to John Ross, who has agreed to become our new webmaster. It is a still a "work in progress" and will continue to evolve over time. Finally, our thanks must of course go to Alex Mitchell of zenelements who listened carefully and patiently to all that we wanted to do, and then designed and constructed the new site you see today. Enjoy!

The sixth series of “Digging Up Your Roots”, BBC Radio Scotland’s programme on genealogy, is underway. The programme is broadcast each Sunday at 12.05pm (GMT), and offers tips and advice for those who are looking to trace their Scottish ancestors. If you missed it or live outside Scotland, you can catch each episode on the BBC Radio Scotland website for seven days after the original broadcast.

The “Who do you think you are? Live” 2012 show takes place at the Olympia Centre in London, from Friday 24th February to Sunday 26th February, if you fancy a trip to London! Staff from ScotlandsPeople and the National Records of Scotland will both be in attendance.

Deceased Online is currently uploading thousands of headstone and memorial transcriptions from over 50 burial grounds and cemeteries across Scotland over the next few weeks. Data for the first 15+ burial grounds, mostly in the Highlands region, are available now, with records for Dundee, Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, the Lothians, Perth and other areas to be added shortly.

Find My Past has produced a TV programme on the theme of the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879. It was broadcast originally on 15th December on the Yesterday channel (Freeview channel 12, Sky 537, Virgin Media 203), but it will be repeated on a number of occasions in the near future on the same channels. The programme focuses on the genealogical trail of the tragedy and contains interviews with descendants of people who were involved in the disaster. The Find My Past team are hoping that other people who have connections to the tragedy will share their stories on Facebook and Twitter.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) is carrying out major improvements to change how the National Collection is stored within its Edinburgh premises at John Sinclair House. Work is scheduled from 1st February to 30th April, and will cause temporary inconvenience to some researchers. The public search room services will be maintained, but there will be no access to some catalogued drawings and manuscripts. If you intend to visit, it is advisable to check in advance to ensure that any specific material you require is actually available.

The 2012 SAFHS Conference is to be hosted by Tay Valley FHS and Fife FHS in the Bonar Hall Dundee.

The Scottish Association of Family History Societies Annual Conference for 2012 will be hosted jointly by Tay Valley FHS and Fife FHS in the Bonar Hall, and the D’Arcy Thomson Lecture Theatre of Dundee University, Dundee, on Saturday, April 21st 2012.

The theme for the 2012 conference will be...

...and the talks will reflect on the importance of crops, weaving, fishing and coal mining, to the communities in the Tay Valley and Fife areas in the past.

More information can be obtained from Tay Valley FHS or Fife FHS. For more details 0f the programme and to download a booking form, click here.

Historian 111, October 2018Historian 111 eJournal has been uploaded to the website and emailed to those who have requested the electronic version. We have been experiencing problems with our outgoing email, specifically btinternet addresses. If you have not received it, please email webmaster@tayvalleyfhs.org.uk.

If you want to connect with other TVFHS members around the world, join Tay Valley Bridges, the independent discussion forum open only to members of this Society. Enjoy online discussions with others interested in genealogy and the Tay Valley area. Free to join after you become a member of the Society. Login and click on the icon above to find out more.